Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

I plan on adding some some more "stuff" next year-if the hospital bills don't kill us. It above $100K right now. We'll see insurance handles it.

Every time I see stuff like this I am glad to live in Canada. I recently read about someone who had a concussion, went to the ER, had a CT scan, and was kept overnight for observation. $33,000 bill. That's a year's salary for some folks. Maybe that's a poor example, but the point is that it is downright scary that somebody like you has to rely on an insurance company to avoid major financial hurt in this situation. How many folks like to put their trust in a company that is looking for ways to NOT pay you?

I have american relatives who have had to go to great lengths to get their insurance to pay for legitimate medical expenses that would otherwise have forced them out of retirement/loss of home etc. What happens to the people that aren't able to effectively chase after the insurance company?

Hope you come out of this OK Ivan, the stress of the medical issues alone is enough.
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

JR-

Which theater google group, or which project? I'm trying to dig the details out of my memory... but I recall the legend was projected onto a large touch-activated surface, which was re-mapped when the legend changed. What made this particular concept piece important to the theatre mixers was that it functioned more like a lighting console... blind writes, preview modes, cue and decimal cue insert modes. IOW it handled the work flow of live theatrical tech much better than 90% of existing analog or digital mixers.

If I could recall enough about this, I might be able to search for it... and perhaps Mac Kerr will read this and be able to furnish more details...
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

Just look at what happened to the studio market. When everyone had a studio in their bedroom the only way for a commercial studio to differentiate themselves was by having racks of the "real stuff".

This is a pretty hot button issue in the recording world right now. Plugins and emulations are really really good these days, and despite lots of shootouts where folks can't tell the difference between the plugin and the real hardware, there is a pervasive attitude among those with a big stake in the game that hardware is much better. That argument will live on, but loses a little more weight as each day passes. The latest trend in modeling analog console summing (ie Slate VCC, Waves NLS, etc) with classics like Neve and SSL consoles modeled eats a bit more of the analog argument away.

Like the sound of an H3K? Well, its sonics could easily be modeled right now by either of the companies I referenced earlier, to the point where you'd be very hard pressed to pick the correct desk in a blind test, not only in terms of on an individual channel but also the way the desk's summing behaves. I won't be surprised if this sort of modeling makes it into the live sound world soon.
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

JR-

Which theater google group, or which project? I'm trying to dig the details out of my memory... but I recall the legend was projected onto a large touch-activated surface, which was re-mapped when the legend changed. What made this particular concept piece important to the theatre mixers was that it functioned more like a lighting console... blind writes, preview modes, cue and decimal cue insert modes. IOW it handled the work flow of live theatrical tech much better than 90% of existing analog or digital mixers.

If I could recall enough about this, I might be able to search for it... and perhaps Mac Kerr will read this and be able to furnish more details...


OK, I have seen interfaces for systems like media matrix, where a custom control interface gets mapped out to some kind of controller.

I guess I am expecting future digital consoles to evolve into being more like media matrix (soft and reconfigurable).

Plugging an IPAD into a mixer is not even close to what I am thinking about , and a dumbed down interface for unskilled system operators to control a complex system is perhaps closer but no cigar.
-----
Yes Tim, the system you describe sounds damn close... kind of like the minority report and other fake interfaces we see on TV.

Ideally the same hardware engine could support multiple industries, with just a different operator interface, which itself can be software.

A lot of the pieces exist, just not at the right price in the right places, yet.

JR
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

This is a pretty hot button issue in the recording world right now. Plugins and emulations are really really good these days, and despite lots of shootouts where folks can't tell the difference between the plugin and the real hardware, there is a pervasive attitude among those with a big stake in the game that hardware is much better. That argument will live on, but loses a little more weight as each day passes. The latest trend in modeling analog console summing (ie Slate VCC, Waves NLS, etc) with classics like Neve and SSL consoles modeled eats a bit more of the analog argument away.

Like the sound of an H3K? Well, its sonics could easily be modeled right now by either of the companies I referenced earlier, to the point where you'd be very hard pressed to pick the correct desk in a blind test, not only in terms of on an individual channel but also the way the desk's summing behaves. I won't be surprised if this sort of modeling makes it into the live sound world soon.
Already has for effect I think...

but there still remains my favorite personal [rant] about lack of EQ bandwidth standards. If you want to model the channel EQ of a H3K without a standard for bandwidth, you literally have to come up with a custom translation to remap the H3K to the platform you want to recreate it on. We already see this tower of Babble in speaker crossover presets, same problem for specifying a specific consoles EQ. [/rant]

I've been watching this for a while and it seems there are competing forces that may not be what they first appear.

One strong motivation for portable platform independent effects plugins, is the increasing audience expectation that live performances will cover the sounds on the recordings. Ideally recording mixes and effects could be carried over to live (mostly or enough to pass). OTOH studio are desperately trying to differentiate themselves and have a reason to exist, after the artists find out they can just about run the plug-ins on their home mac computer.

Lots of voodoo about transformer and tube sound from studios as they scrape for reasons to exist.

or not.....

JR
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

I keep kicking around the notion of mixing in a more democratic fashion. Where the audience and musicians decide what sounds best, not a mix person. I think the better we get at managing large loudspeaker systems in rooms the easier it will be to put the control of level tone and balance back to the people who should rightly be in control of it in the first place.

The audience has absolutely no idea how things should sound.

Neither do most bands.

Hell, neither do most sound men.
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

The audience has absolutely no idea how things should sound.

Neither do most bands.

Hell, neither do most sound men.

LOL... A few years back when I had a PA installed in a club, one of the bands had a guitarist that had the most God-awful tone, and at gigs other than mine, he was their soundman
 
Last edited:
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

Every time I see stuff like this I am glad to live in Canada. I recently read about someone who had a concussion, went to the ER, had a CT scan, and was kept overnight for observation. $33,000 bill. That's a year's salary for some folks. Maybe that's a poor example, but the point is that it is downright scary that somebody like you has to rely on an insurance company to avoid major financial hurt in this situation. How many folks like to put their trust in a company that is looking for ways to NOT pay you?

I have american relatives who have had to go to great lengths to get their insurance to pay for legitimate medical expenses that would otherwise have forced them out of retirement/loss of home etc. What happens to the people that aren't able to effectively chase after the insurance company?
I recently had a minor procedure in my ENT's office, less than an hour total in the office and maybe 10 minutes with the doctor that led to a $15k+ bill with the follow-up billed separately. My wife jokes that the only reason she works is to get us decent healthcare coverage but it is a bit too true.

Ivan, sorry to hear of your wife's illness, but glad to hear that she is recovering.


I find the predictions for everything being wireless, and that extends beyond audio, interesting as that implies many disparate groups getting much more efficient with the use of the RF spectrum.

The idea of everyone creating their own mix also seems to reflect a shift from the concept of delivering the artist's vision to everyone to that of everyone defining their own vision of the artist's work, but that does seem to reflect the move toward a more collaborative and interactive approach to just about everything that seems to be prevalent (for good or bad).
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

I have been trying to ignore the healthcare cost veer... costs are off the rails and the fix is not in...

I paid for a MRI out of pocket and was overcharged a factor of several X, because I was not a big insurance company with a private unpublished under the table price deal. Swapping out big government for big insurance does not make me feel any more comfortable.

I'll take fedex or UPS over the post office any day, and the PO is losing money hand over fist. Putting Fedex and UPS out of business and making us use the post office for everything sounds like it would only help the post office, not us.

More market competition not even less is the answer IMO. I sure hope I am wrong....I really really do. Luckily for us Dec 2012 is the end of the world so this can't get really bad. We don't need to worry about running out of money past the 4th quarter this year. :)

JR
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

My experience with my local post offices and my route carriers makes me wish they were the only package delivery service in the USA. I have had enough problems with FedEx that I have a direct phone number to FedEx management, and I just avoid UPS whenever I can due to cluelessness at the local UPS facility.
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

My experience with my local post offices and my route carriers makes me wish they were the only package delivery service in the USA. I have had enough problems with FedEx that I have a direct phone number to FedEx management, and I just avoid UPS whenever I can due to cluelessness at the local UPS facility.

:)

JR
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

I keep kicking around the notion of mixing in a more democratic fashion. Where the audience and musicians decide what sounds best, not a mix person. I think the better we get at managing large loudspeaker systems in rooms the easier it will be to put the control of level tone and balance back to the people who should rightly be in control of it in the first place.

Music is still art in my book. If you don't like what the artist is demonstrating on stage people need to find another artist they like better og just live with it. You don't go into the kitchen to tell the chef how to make today's special, either, you go somewhere else to eat if you don't like what's on the menu.

Aside from that, you crystal ball projection has already materialized in the form of Lady Gaga: Thankfully it includes song selection and not mixing decisions.

Lady Gaga uses Sonic Notify - the inaudible QR code for smartphones | Mail Online
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

Another old one of mine is completely leapfrogging the mixing paradigm, from manually riding gain and EQ settings to instead set targets for spectral balance and relative levels. The analogy I like to use to explain target based mixing is like a thermostat in your house to control the result (temperature) instead of a on/off more/less controls to keep tweaking the heat up/down.

JR, that's one of the most interesting predictions I've heard, and does seem (at least on the surface) that such an idea could have merit in a variety of applications.

Interestingly, there is now an EQ plugin that sort of runs along these lines, albeit more limited than your idea. It's called SurferEQ.

From their marketing: "SurferEQ tracks the pitch of the instrument or a vocal track and can change the EQ frequency accordingly in real-time, making it possible for the first time to naturally control the fundamental frequencies or harmonics of a track. Just set any of the EQ bands to a desired harmonic and watch SurferEQ move with the track, staying always relevant to the music."
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

While the sound of plug ins and modeling may have caught up and even passed analog designs, what is still lacking is the tactile control of an analog device. In a studio setting, I get better results when I turn a knob until it sounds the way I want rather than looking at values and using a mouse. Yes, digital consoles have knobs, but it's just not the same thing for me - yet. I also find myself slowed down by too many choices. This can be true in the number of plug in options as well as the number of setting one plug in offers. In a live setting, I like that a PCM 60 has only a few options, and that a DBX160XT doesn't have attack and release knobs. Since I am mostly mixing on an SC48, I have gravitated towards plug ins like the Massey CT4. It only has a few options, and they all sound great.

In the studio, what works for me is to use analog on the way in, and plug ins for mixing. I don't think this will ever change.

My crystal ball says that FIR will be the line in the sand that the line-array was a few years ago. The use of advanced DSP to overcome box design is the future. I know this is already happening, but I think that if speaker manufacturers don't go in that direction, they will be left behind.
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

My crystal ball says that FIR will be the line in the sand that the line-array was a few years ago. The use of advanced DSP to overcome box design is the future. I know this is already happening, but I think that if speaker manufacturers don't go in that direction, they will be left behind.

I think that what may also happen is that the cost of implementing FIR via DSP will eventually become very cheap, and manufacturers of low-end products may then have the means of making something using poorer quality drivers to get similar sonics at reduced manufacturing cost.
 
Re: Tell us what you see in your crystal ball....

JR, that's one of the most interesting predictions I've heard, and does seem (at least on the surface) that such an idea could have merit in a variety of applications.

Interestingly, there is now an EQ plugin that sort of runs along these lines, albeit more limited than your idea. It's called SurferEQ.

From their marketing: "SurferEQ tracks the pitch of the instrument or a vocal track and can change the EQ frequency accordingly in real-time, making it possible for the first time to naturally control the fundamental frequencies or harmonics of a track. Just set any of the EQ bands to a desired harmonic and watch SurferEQ move with the track, staying always relevant to the music."

Correlation between fundamentals and harmonics has been well explored in single ended noise reductions since the '70s (I don't recall the model but Phase Linear sold a consumer unit? There were also multiple professional variants over the years).

What I am talking about requires simple FFT analysis and learning spectral signatures for results. One possible difficulty is parsing out EQ for voicing the source, and EQ to correct for playback/room issues. The system to be fully automatic would need to separate the two, while this is possible too, with a few spaced room mics to correct the room to the targets also.

In my ideal world, you could mix a song once and hit save... Then every time you play that program, in any room, with any mics, etc, it will sound prtetty much the same (for better or worse). At some point mixing a song over and over seems like a waste of time, unless you didn't get it right the first time, and then you could capture edits and improvements.

or not... This is a large leap for most, who want to believe they can't be replaced by technology. Perhaps the better way to think about this is as technology helping us do our job, by eliminating rote tasks.

JR